Easy Way to Cook a Turkey for Meat and Broth– plus cost analysis!

Sales on turkeys abound every November. Stores use turkey as their loss leader to get people into their store to buy all their other Thanksgiving fixin’s. As someone who likes to stock up, you won’t be surprised that we stock up on turkey too! We don’t go crazy, but we buy several turkeys when they are at rock bottom prices.

Depending on how much freezer space we have available (and how ambitious we’re feeling) we either cook our turkeys right away and freeze the cooked meat and broth, or we’ll just stick the turkey straight into the freezer and cook it several months down the road. I love having pre-cooked meat in the freezer and often use turkey in place of chicken in recipes.

This works out really well for us, except for that one time (but we don’t need to talk about that now).

Is the savings of cooking and freezing (or freezing and cooking) turkey worth the effort? I’ll address the big “Is it worth it?” question along with a cost analysis at the end of the post.

First, I’ll show you the simple way to cook a turkey.

Simple Way to Cook a Turkey

I took the long trip upstairs to my in-laws’ house to give you the play-by-play of how my mother-in-law cooks her turkeys. She has quite a bit of personal experience cooking turkeys and she is the queen of practical, so you are about to learn from the best. I think she is on her fifth one this week (she cans the meat– I’ll show you how to do that next week).

When you’re cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, you might season it in a certain way or fill it with stuffing. When you’re cooking a turkey to freeze or can the meat for future meals, it’s a little simpler.

When we shop for turkeys we go for the biggest ones. It takes as much effort to cook a small turkey as a big turkey, so you may as well go big and have more leftovers! Plus, bigger turkeys have a better meat-to-bone ratio. This bird here is just under 24 lbs.

Make sure the turkey is thoroughly thawed in the refrigerator (or another safe method). Pull off any excess fat (like that big chunk in the foreground). Remove the neck, giblets, gravy packets, and any other treasures (and by that I mean “ewww”) from the cavity. Wash the turkey inside and out. Pat dry.

Put a couple tablespoons of flour and a bit of onion into an oven bag and shake it around. If you haven’t used oven bags before, you’re going to thank me. They are wonderful. Not only do they make clean-up a breeze, but the turkey will cook faster, be more moist, and require no basting.

Sprinkle seasoned salt generously over the turkey, inside and out.

Close the turkey up using the plastic leg-closing contraption that is included.

Admire your bird. I’m going to take this opportunity to admit that raw meat grosses me out, so I always make my husband do this part. Always. If he isn’t around, then I recruit my mother-in-law. I am a certified wimp in the raw meat department.

Put the bird in the bag with the breast down. I know this is contrary to what every other recipe and tutorial will tell you, but just do it. The white breast meat is typically the drier meat, so putting the breast down helps keep it moist without having to baste it.

You might want to have a helper hold the bag open. When I’m not holding the camera, I am the big helper who holds the bag open. As long as the turkey doesn’t actually touch me, that’s a job I can manage.

Cut five or six small slits in the bag.

Because my mother-in-law has been cooking turkeys all week, she’s been letting them cook through the night. With the temperature set at 250 degrees (that’s a two, not a three), this 24 pound turkey was done in about 10 hours. For the last hour or so, you can turn the temperature up to 325 degrees.

Of course, you could cook your turkey in much less time if you want. Refer to your package for the cooking time for the weight of your particular turkey.

Doesn’t that look like an easy clean-up job!? Also, the meat is falling right off the bone, which makes the deboning process much easier.

All the turkey juices can easily be poured into a container. As it cools, the fat will rise to the top and solidify. When it does, scrape it off and toss it. The remaining gel is concentrated turkey broth. Freeze it for use in soups, stews and anywhere else you use broth.

Pull the meat off the bones. Actually, if you cooked it long enough, it will probably fall right off the bones. You can freeze it and use it in recipes just like you would use chicken. You can also bottle it so it doesn’t require any freezing or refrigeration. I’ll have a tutorial for canning turkey up next week.

Save the bones and skin from the turkey carcass. Stick them in a pressure cooker and smash them down as much as you can. Fill with just enough water to cover the bones. Let them pressure cook for about an hour and a half. Alternatively you can use a slow cooker, it just takes longer.

All the goodness is transferred from the bones to the water to create broth.

Pour off the broth and stick it in the fridge. As it cools, the fat will rise to the top and form a thick layer on top. Scrape it off and the gel remaining is your turkey broth. It will be good in the fridge for a week or so, or keep much longer in the freezer. The bones will be brittle and ready to toss.

To freeze your broth easily without a container, just wrap chunks of the broth gel up in plastic wrap. Be sure to seal the edges. Be sure the gel is cool. When you heat it the gel will liquefy.

Wrap the broth in twice in plastic wrap, turning the packet 90 degrees before the second wrapping. Label and store in a freezer bag until you need it.

Cost Analysis

Weight of whole turkey= 23.9 lb

Cost of turkey= $15.42 (the tag price is double that, but with the promo it was half off)

Yield:

Meat ~8.75 lb

Broth (concentrated) ~10 cups

bones, skin, gristle ~5.5 lbs

Broth (from pressure cooking bones) ~8 cups

fat and grease ~1.75 lb

giblets ~1 lb

gravy packet ~.5 lb

If you want to assess the cost just of the meat, we paid $15.42 for 8.75 lb of meat which is $1.76 per pound. As a comparison, that’s a little less than what I usually pay for frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

If you plan to use the broth, then you’ll want to figure in its value. If you normally buy broth in cans, then 144 oz of broth (18 cups free from the turkey) would have cost $9 (using the sale price of $2 for 32 oz, which is what it is here).

You can divide the cost however you like between the useful turkey products. I look at it as paying $1.76/lb for the meat and getting $9 of broth free.

Is it Worth It?

If you are new to cooking from scratch, you might be wondering if it is worth going through all that work to save money on the price of turkey.

That depends.

If you aren’t interested in saving and using the broth, then you might be better off buying something boneless rather than messing with the whole turkey (for anything besides the obligatory Thanksgiving turkey, of course).

If you normally buy cans or boxes of broth, then getting over a gallon of broth for free is a pretty nice perk. Plus, this broth is much more flavorful than what you get out of a can.

It’s no secret that cooking and deboning a turkey is more work than buying a frozen turkey breast and some cans of broth. If you’re willing to do the work though, you will save money and you’ll probably end up with a more delicious final product.

How about you?

Do you save the turkey broth from your Thanksgiving turkey?

Do you use the bones to make more broth?

Do you “stock up” when turkey is in season and on sale?

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Comments

What a beautiful turkey you have there, looks so good! I have made turkeys similar to your method and the turkey is perfect and cleanup is a breeze with the bag. Over the past few years I have made a few changes. I do a ham and a turkey breast in my crock pot. I simply buy ones, on sale of course, that will fit in the crock and prepare them exactly the same way I would if I were cooking in the oven. I put the 2 crock pots on the counter and cook overnight then turn off in the morning. This frees up oven space for all the other things I have to prepare and both stay warm till meal time. I always have a very moist, delicious turkey and ham. I feel this works best for me because it’s less stressful. I don’t have a lot of family that cook so I do prepare a lot of the meal. Some years I never had time to get dressed myself, lol. The only thing I can think of that is a downside is the turkey isn’t as brown but it makes up for that in flavor and moisture. I usually cut it all up and put on a serving tray so the fact that it’s not crispy isn’t noticeable anyway. Also, I can’t even describe how wonderful the kitchen smells in the morning. I also cook it breast down. I too get grossed out easily so since the breast is smaller than the whole turkey it seems not quite as yucky. Well, it’s still pretty gross.. lol !

When I was a kid my Mom used to stock up on turkey’s at Thanksgiving time, the biggest birds she could find what what she’d buy. We had one deep freezer that was exclusively for meat deals that she found through out the year. At least once a month she would roast a huge turkey. We don’t stock up on turkey for our family 2 people don’t eat any animal products, 2 are selective about which animal products they’ll eat and one is a huge fan of meat.

Ever since accidentally cooking a turkey breast side down, I cook it that way on purpose. My husband always wants me to share this tip with everyone; he can tell the difference in the taste easily. Make my own broth from chicken as well in the crockpot. I add bay leaf, onion, garlic and carrots for more flavor. Usually freeze in non concentrate form. May have try concentrate method.

I’ve never bought a full sized turkey because I have nowhere to store it, but perhaps this year I will just cook it immediately. 🙂 this is a great idea! I’ve bought breasts at rock bottom prices and put them in the crock pot with some spices and broth and it’s so moist! Even my non-meat eater likes it!

I’m assuming this same principle works for chicken? I have a whole chicken I got on clearance a while back and I need to get some good use out of it. Broth is a great idea (besides the chicken too)

Cooking a whole turkey is one of those coming of age things. 🙂 I felt like such a grown-up when we cooked our first whole turkey! And yes, you can do the same with whole chickens. They fit in a slow cooker nicely, so you don’t even have to worry about the oven bag!

This is a great tutorial. I honestly do not like roasting turkeys because I always find them to cook unevenly. I have used the bags before, but I guess with all of the plastic scares in past years, I am a little hesitant to bake in plastic. But I really like your process, and the cost breakdown too. I purchased a turkey to roast this week, despite my aversion to doing so, because I really wanted the broth. Real broth is just not the same as canned. I have done similar cost analyses as well on roasting a chicken, and have found the same results – it’s sometimes cheaper to just buy breasts, but I like the broth from chicken bones.

I’m mostly a veggivore, but my husband loves turkey so we try to get a fairly good sized one for leftovers. I am looking forward to the day when we have our own home and a chest freezer to store all the goodies we squirrel away (and several turkeys) 🙂

Hi Allison! You can use it as is, or add water, depending on what else you’re adding. If you have veggies for a stew that will juice a lot of liquid as they cook (like squash, for example) you won’t need to add water. Otherwise, you will add some water too.

My dogs are upset you left out the part about all the wonderful little meat pieces that go into a bowl to be added to their dog food. And before anyone yells about feeding dogs people food let me say my dogs all live into their teens, are not overweight & have no health problems. Happy Holidays!